Turning the "Contract With America" into a
Contract-Out on Excessive Regulation

Opinion/Editorial by David A. Ridenour, Vice President of
The National Center for Public Policy Research and Director of The
Environmental Policy Task Force.

Published January 1995

On November 8, the American people sent a clear message to Washington --
the federal government is too large, too arrogant and too intrusive and must be
changed. Nowhere is this change more urgently needed than in the area of
regulation.

During President Clinton's two years in office, federal regulations have
grown at a pace not seen since the Carter Administration. In 1994, the Federal
Register, which publishes all federal regulations, was 64,914 pages in length
-- the highest total since Carter's 73,258 in 1980 and third largest in
American history. The federal government now employs 126,815 people to
administer these regulations and if the President gets his way, that number
will grow even further -- to almost 130,000 by 1995.

Federal regulation and bureaucratic red tape costs the economy an estimated
$500 billion annually -- slowing growth, reducing our international
competitiveness and increasing prices for consumers. That figure doesn't even
include the cost associated with complying with local and state regulation.
The Washington, D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform estimates that the average
American had to work until July 10 last year to pay the costs associated with
local, state and federal regulations, taxes, mandates and deficit spending.

Perhaps the greatest cost of the current regulatory regime is its sometimes
perverse impact on ordinary Americans. Regulatory "horror stories"
abound:

Six-year-old Robyn Lerman of Highland park, Illinois was denied a visit by
the tooth fairy after her dentist, fearful of running afoul of Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations that list teeth as
potentially biologically hazardous materials, refused to give her the teeth he
had extracted from her.

OSHA fined the plumbing company DeBest Inc. $7,875 after two of its
employees in Garden City, Idaho failed to don government-approved hard hats and
build a retaining wall before rescuing a worker from suffocation after the
ditch he was working in collapsed.

Joseph and Irma Phillips lost all the money from the sale of their house
and their entire life savings after the Army Corps of Engineers declared a farm
they purchased a wetland and barred construction on it. The Maryland now must
depend on the generosity of family for a roof over their heads.

Somewhere along the line we lost sight of the intent of regulations in the
first place -- to be our servants not our masters. We all share in the blame:
The public demands a pristine environment and life without risks, but without
an clear understanding of the trade-offs. Meanwhile, business and industry too
often live in the short term, building narrow coalitions designed to fend-off
specific regulations rather than investing time and effort in building a
broad-based coalition to oppose overly-intrusive regulations of any type.

But there is some evidence that we are learning from our mistakes. In
December, the GOP's point-man on regulatory reform, Majority Whip Tom DeLay
(R-TX) launched Project Relief, a coalition of some 300 business, industry,
family and property rights organizations to seek regulatory relief for all
Americans. It is perhaps the most broad-based regulatory reform coalition ever
assembled with membership ranging from the Christian Coalition to the property
rights umbrella organization Alliance for America to business and industry
groups such as the National Federation of Independent Business.

It was at the suggestion of Project Relief and through the efforts of
Congressman DeLay that the Republican leadership of both Houses of Congress
asked President Clinton on December 12 to order a 100-day moratorium on all
federal rulemaking, with appropriate exemptions, to allow the new Congress
sufficient time to evaluate some 4,300 rulemakings planned by the
Administration for the next fiscal year and to craft the regulatory reform
promised under the GOP's "Contract with America." He declined.

In response, Congressmen DeLay and David McIntosh (R-IN) introduced the "Regulatory
Transition Act of 1995," H.R. 450, which would impose a moratorium
retroactive to November 9, 1994. It would not apply to regulations that
respond to an imminent threat to health or safety, or those essential to
criminal law enforcement. A companion bill, S. 219, was introduced in the
Senate by Senator Don Nickles (R-OK).

The Regulatory Transition Act is only the first volley in what will be an
on-going effort to put people back into the regulatory equation. As part of
the "Contract with America," Republicans committed to such regulatory
reforms as a realistic system of cost-benefit analysis, the development of the
rational method of risk assessment, and an end to unfunded federal mandates
within the first hundred days of the 104th Congress. If these efforts are to
be successful, they will need input from the public. That's why Project Relief
has established a toll-free line, 1-800-9XS-REGS, where citizens can report
their regulatory horror stories and their concerns.

In November, Republicans ran on the "Contract with America," a
platform for reducing the size and scope of the federal government -- and won.
With the support of the American public, the "Contract with America"
can become a contract out on excessive and overzealous regulation.